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Comment by ccozan | Hacker News Reader

Ok tens of billions I believe, but trillion+ is likely an exaggeration

> Since SQLite is used extensively in every smartphone, and there are more than 4.0 billion (4.0e9) smartphones in active use, each holding hundreds of SQLite database files, it is seems likely that there are over one trillion (1e12) SQLite databases in active use.

Sounds reasonable to me.

Hundreds of SQLite files? In active use? Unless iOS itself spawns a few hundred instances and actively uses them all the time I have a hard time thinking of what would use so many databases, much less that they’re actually in active use.

Well. I counted 27 SQLite files in my Chrome profile. On a PC though. But as they are used to store History, Cookie, etc. I guess on iOS/Android situations are similar.

And that's one single app.

What does active use really mean? The databases themselves are only accessed for a few nanoseconds at a time.

I think "something somebody uses will break if this file is missing or corrupt" probably makes a reasonable definition here.

That's true of most software though, even when you're staring at their GUI. It's part of the normal operation of the software, where do you draw the line?

The OS does do that, on behalf of applications CoreData or those using SQLite directly.

No, that still seems inflated. That's like counting installs of Word or Excel by counting the number of documents that exist.

The pays says: "Billions and billions of copies of SQLite exist in the wild". Which seems reasonable and is counting the number of installs as you preferred.

Later on the page says "it is seems likely that there are over one trillion (1e12) SQLite databases in active use" which is the quoted title and seems like a reasonable claim and is counting "documents" not installs.

I don't think "documents" is an uninteresting statistic. It is just a different one.

That's exactly what's being counted. A database is a SQLite document.

That's... Exactly what a SQLite database is - a file. This thread isn't about the number of unique devices that potentially use SQLite

"Active" is a big word here. Each of these databases is in nearly continuous use. You couldn't say that about the vast majority of excel spreadsheets, or any word documents.

Tens of billions of installs of the database _engine_, trillions of databases (ie SQLite files).

The webpage is a bit unclear about the difference, I'll agree

He's counting database files (100/phone), not physical devices.

Geopackage uses sqlite under hood https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeoPackage .

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